I have just finished the book “Mission London” by the Bulgarian writer Alek Popov. I was expecting the book to be fun and was not disappointed at first. But when the stereotypical characters (that seems almost obligatory when it comes to describing Eastern Europeans) starts arriving one after one; power crazy diplomat/boss/politician, girl who work as a strip tease, hardened ruthless criminal, a dead female body, I become somewhat down stricken. However, I keep reading and the plot (and the characters to some degree) starts to unfold in ways I’m not expecting. It turns out that it’s not so totally stereotypical after all. Now I think that the book has more depth than I thought at its lowest points. It was fun, interesting and I could easily read an other book like this, and I definitely want to check out the film adaptation.

Alek Popov was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, in 1966. He graduated from St. Constantine Cyril the Philosopher College for Ancient Languages and Cultures in Sofia and later received his master’s degree in Bulgarian language and literature from the Sofia University. In 1997, he attended the English Language Institute at Wayne State University.

His first novel, Mission London, based on colorful impressions from his time as the cultural attaché at the Bulgarian Embassy in the United Kingdom, was published in 2001. It has been widely acclaimed as “the funniest contemporary Bulgarian book” for its sarcastic projection of the Bulgarian diplomatic elite. So far, it has been translated and published into 15 languages. An English edition of Mission London is forthcoming in the U.K., published by Istros Books (April, 2014).

The film Mission London based on the novel was released in 2010 and according to distributors was “a breakthrough phenomenon,” leading the Bulgarian box office for weeks. It became the most frequented Bulgarian movie for the last 20 years. In 2011, it won the Unbribable Award of Transparency International Croatia’s program “Culture against Corruption”.

Like this:

Slogans Lift, Though Quickly Drift

“Ostavka” (resignation) and “cherveni boklutsi” (red trash) are terms often heard around Bulgaria these days, in the context of the ongoing anti-government protests. The latter, happens to be a chant brought out directly from the football stadiums and transposed onto a certain political denomination. The country has witnessed nearly 5 months of protests and 2 weeks of university hall occupations. What is yet to come out of all this, is any sort of dialogue or debate between politicians and citizens.

One side has barricaded itself in the Parliament building, guarded by fences and police, while the other has locked itself in university lecture halls, stalling the academic process. The danger with decades of demagogic governing and an unreformed educational system is that they create “slogan protesters”. Debates on the fundamental issues are virtually absent in both the Parliament and the university halls, or at least I am yet to see any evidence of such.

The other day, I heard Julian Popov, a former minister in the interim government and one of the founders of the New Bulgarian University, speak of how we are witnessing a revolutionary model, in which “citizens are taking over functions of the state”. And all this, in the context of a conference on democracy building, struck me as rather bizarre. Citizens, in a democratic society, are there to act as a check and balance to the state, not to take over its duties. Forming a trend, where every slightly more massive outcry by the public can reverse executive or judiciary decisions, is a precedent to a dysfunctional state.

If the protest movement is to have any success, it must first ask itself the question, does it want to be reformist or revolutionary? Revolutions can be carried out on the back of slogans and gun barrels alone, but reconstructing a political model after their initial euphoria, is a whole different matter. Professor Alexander Kiossev, one of the vocal supporters of the Sofia University occupation, talked about the need to “restart the state and form new political entities”. This is in stark contrast to what is being said by the very protesters he backs, who have declared themselves “non-partisan”, and have no wish to associate under any new political formation.

What follows by this, is that if the current government steps down, and Bulgarians head to the polls, we are unlikely to see any new actors playing a major role. Such was the case after February’s protests toppled the cabinet of former PM Boyko Borisov. His center-right GERB party still managed to earn the most votes, despite not being able to form a coalition afterwards. Recent polls suggest fresh elections would still see the two main parties, the Socialists and GERB share much of the votes, with only a slight drop in their percentages. The only new actor, which somewhat attempts to portray itself as the unifier of the protesters, the Reformist Bloc, is given no more than a 5% prediction.

The formation of new political entities responsible for restarting the state, which Kiossev talks about, is a process that must be well underway at the point of revolution, or transition (to use a more 21st century term). It needs to have concrete demands and a strategy for leadership. Such was the case with Poland’s Solidarity movement, fortified over several cycles of protests and strikes in the late 70s and throughout the 80s. By the time the country headed for its first free elections, they had become a synonym for change, ready to enter the political arena.

The typical Bulgarian trait of stubbornness, can serve as both the fuel that makes or breaks these protests. When mixed with a set of practical measures that can be embodied into a political program, the recipe for lasting change may become available. To reach that stage, the protesters must move beyond slogans, hashtags, and flash mobs.

‘Resign!’ – Bulgaria’s protesters need a better slogan than that

Bulgaria’s protests are diminishing, but the country remains in crisis. Can the student demonstrators lead the way in providing a new political language?

Bulgaria is undergoing a deep political crisis. A mass social mobilisation against austerity, poverty and electricity price rises took place in February, toppling the centre-right government. After elections in May, the independent Plamen Oresharski became prime minister, backed by a broad coalition of social democrats (BSP) liberals (DPS) and the far right (ATAKA). Oresharski, a technocrat, was best known as one of the architects of the currency board imposed on Bulgaria in 1997 as part of an IMF programme to save the country from currency collapse and hyperinflation. Bulgaria went from the frying pan into the fire, forced into a regime of unrelenting austerity, long before Greece and the rest of western Europe.

In the 2000s Oresharski shifted politically towards the social democrats. As finance minister, he developed a hardcore neoliberal pedigree, becoming infamous, although praised by the World Bank, for introducing a 10% flat tax and for taking a tough line against striking teachers in 2007.

This round of popular unrest, going on for over 160 days now, erupted over the controversial appointment of Delyan Peevski, a media mogul, as a head of national security. Originally, demonstrations were immense, with participants from all sides of the political spectrum demanding the resignation of the government. Gradually, the protests became smaller after being hijacked by groups who saw them as a way of reviving 1990s anti-communism. Protesters started to call for “European values”, “morality in politics” and a “genuine break” with the communist past. The BSP managed to organise a counter-protest movement, staging at least two huge rallies and the situation became deadlocked – government and opposition sharing identical socio-economic visions but throwing empty accusations at each other.

The protests entered a new phase when students occupied Sofia University’s main building last month. The rightwing opposition, composed of ex-ruling party GERB and the Reform Bloc, saw the occupation as an extension of their campaign. The occupation certainly inspired the street protests anew. When people saw its potential, however, there was a lot of pressure from party activists and from within the occupation to abandon its intellectual aims and to focus on bringing about the government’s resignation and new elections. The original radical content of the occupation was ignored by the media while the old “communists v anti-communists” paradigm took over.

Yet the occupation itself is curiously devoid of strong anti-communism. When they join the protests, students refuse to chant “red scum”. Another key difference is that not a single EU flag was raised inside the occupation, unlike in the street protests.

The students’ “moral revolution” sits uncomfortably with the attempt by political elites to find new legitimacy through reviving old political divisions. The students have explicitly distanced themselves from all the political parties that have dominated Bulgaria post-1989, directing their anger instead at the endless “transition” to democracy, with its misery and corruption.

Most importantly, the occupation has gone beyond demanding just a government resignation that would result in a different set of politicians but the status quo remaining the same. The students organised workshops where they discussed their desired common future, reminding us of what a university is supposed to be. While the street demonstrations were trapped in focusing on the spectral figure of “communism”, never allowing space for reflection and critical debate, by contrast, the original style of the student occupation is inspired by the Occupy movement.

The price of success in reviving the protests, however, was the irreparable loss of the intellectual content of the occupation’s initial phase. Somehow, the occupation must manage to revive its own aims and direction. It should do so not only for its own sake, but for the sake of the wider protest movement and Bulgaria as a whole.

The protest movement’s main slogan – “Ostavka!” (“Resign!”) – lacks the ability to mobilise people, hence the dwindling popularity of the protests. The students can give the protests a choice beyond two dead-end options represented by the ruling socialist-turned-neoliberal party and its challengers from GERB and the ruling bloc. And the students have shown an ability to empathise with the problems faced by ordinary Bulgarians (poverty, disappearing public services, etc) in a radically new and interesting way that takes them away from the post-1989 debate.

To find a solution to our predicament we need a new political language – one that the old political parties are in no position to provide. Still, we should not forget the dangers of the present situation. The lack of any sensible option on the left opens up the risk of radical uncertainty. We should recall the words of Gramsci, that the time when the old world is dying away, and the new world struggles to come forth, is the time of monsters.

Weather: Stockholm, Sweden

A little about me and the blog…

I have been to Bulgaria on vacation but I don't know the language, Cyrillic alphabet or anybody. So I´ll be encountering many new situations and hopefully gain some insights from them. Some of it may end up on my blog. But even blogging is new to me sooo we´ll see...